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There are no prerequisites to make into the 10 most evil serial killers ever club, other than horribly murdering a bunch of people. In fact, the more ordinary you look, the better, since the scariest thing about a serial killer is that they could be just about anyone. When we hear or read about some gruesome murder in the news, we tend to imagine the aggressor as some ugly, unhinged monster, with bloodshot eyes and a bloody ax for a banner. Sadly, serial killers are rarely so. Instead, they are real-life, flesh and blood, regular looking people: they could be your neighbor, a teacher, the nurse down at the hospital, or the clown you hired for your kid’s birthday party (who is still pretty frightening needless to be a murderer). What makes them so terrifying is the knowledge we’re unable to recognize them until it’s too late, but it’s also what makes them so terribly interesting.

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Another factor that makes these nightmare creators so disturbing is that in the last century there have been more than 4,743 caught in the US alone, so just imagining throughout the whole history of the world what the total count must be is enough to cost anyone quite a few sleepless nights. Not to even mention the ones who were never caught. If you’re still reading this instead of hiding in your closet, then you might be interested in watching some of the 11 best serial killer documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015, but beware, your dreams will never be the same again.

Technically speaking, the FBI defines serial killing as “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone”, but there are many variations to this description. With the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant break -a “cooling off period”- between them, it is not to be confused with mass murdering, or killing sprees, however, they can overlap. With their behavior triggered by psychological causes, the assailants have almost always been found out to have suffered some kind of abuse –emotional, physical, or sexual- themselves, at some point in their lives. Now that you know the basics, let’s take a look at some of the most evil serial killers ever.